Blow the House Down Read Online Free

consequence runs through it. You’d have to be Vin Diesel with brains to even get inside the place. Still, Lynch had made his point: Always assume you’re being tailed even when you are sure you’re not. It’s the only way to keep your edge, not get sloppy, not get caught.
    I couldn’t tell Chris any of that, of course. Like a lot of friendships, ours depended on a certain degree of ambiguity, augmented in my case—and maybe in his, too—with a healthy dose of harmless virtual reality. A moral no-man’s-land.
    â€œListen,” I said, “I was seeing this girl, and…”
    Chris bit, back on familiar ground once more.
    â€œBound to happen,” he said with a shrug.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œHundreds of women. One Max. One of ’em was bound to get pissed off enough to come after you.”
    â€œChris, listen—”
    â€œI mean it, Max. You really are like a goddamn alley cat. You slink in and out of people’s lives. Me, I don’t mind that much. I’m not looking to bed you down, but—”
    â€œThe point is…”
    â€œRemember that chewing-gum heiress who was stuck on you way back when? Get it?
Stuck
on you. What did that last? Seven months? A fucking world record. After Marissa.”
    In fact, I’d already asked Chris to be my best man when it dawned on me that I liked having sex with the heiress more than I liked her, just about the same time she realized that she preferred the idea of me to me in person.
    â€œYouthful indiscretions,” I said. I needed to get Chris back on track. “Lookit, this little piece of work is different. Very vindictive. Worse, she’s got the money to indulge her anger.”
    â€œWhat’s her name?”
    Name? Volunteer nothing, and never give up a detail you absolutely don’t have to.
    â€œI cut her off cold,” I said. “No five stages of grief with this one. Just checked out. Left her steaming. I wouldn’t put it past her to put a tail on me, or worse. Chris, I could use a little help here.”
    Chris turned serious again. “Come on, Max, we’re too old for this. I’ve got work to do. You can watch the watchers yourself.”
    â€œThat’s precisely what I can’t do. If I do something stupid like walk out of here and look over my shoulder, bend over to tie my shoe, or stare into a display window to see what’s going on behind me, they’ll know I spotted them.”
    â€œSo? Isn’t that the point?”
    â€œYeah, you do that and whoever is running this little show will bring in a new team I won’t spot. It’s the way these things work.”
    Chris wasn’t buying into it, but he hadn’t said no. It was up to me to close the deal.
    â€œTrust me,” I told him, “this chick is totally unzipped, a psycho. She’ll do me harm given the chance. I gotta know sooner rather than later whether she’s got a tail on me.”
    I picked Chris’s cell phone up off the desk, poked my cell number into it, and put it back down in front of him. “See this little button with the green telephone on it? Push that in ten and tell me what happens. That’s all you have to do.”
    Chris tapped his fingers on the desk, adjusted his neck in his starched white collar, shot his wrist out from an equally starched and beautiful tailored French cuff, and gave his watch a good looking-over.
    â€œOkay, okay. But you know, Max, it’s not easy having you as a friend.”
    He rolled his wrist a few more times just to make sure I didn’t miss what was wrapped around it. The watch looked as if it had cost enough to feed an entire Afghan village for years.
    â€œA new toy, eh?”
    â€œA Breitling.” He was beaming. “It’s got a micro-transmitter in it that works anywhere in the world.”
    â€œIn case you get kidnapped?”
    â€œNo, asshole, I bought it for sailing.”
    I laughed.